


Days since...

by MissScorp



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Gil Arroyo needs the hug, Humor, Malcolm Bright Whump, Malcolm doing dumb ass things, Malcolm is accident prone, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21976408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissScorp/pseuds/MissScorp
Summary: Gil Arroyo used to think that Bright was incident prone. He quickly discovered the kid wasn't simply incident prone... he was accident prone, too.Just some fun and fluff with a moderate amount of whump given Malcolm is gonna have some sort of injury after whatever calamity.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright, Malcolm Bright & Ainsley Whitly, Malcolm Bright & Dani Powell, Malcolm Bright & Edrisa Tanaka, Malcolm Bright & JT Tarmel, Malcolm Bright & Jessica Whitly, Malcolm Bright & Sunshine the Bird
Comments: 132
Kudos: 190





	1. Chapter 1

Gil started it after the club incident. It was just to poke fun at Bright for how incident prone he was becoming.

Bright argued with him, of course. Said he was making more of things than was necessary. Gil replied three incidents showed precedence.

He realized after that Bright wasn't incident prone.

No, he was simply accident prone.

Why else was the kid sitting in his office with an ice pack to the back of his head after falling off the steps outside the precinct?

Gil erased the number of days since an incident and replaced it with a zero.


	2. Chapter 2

They made it one day before Bright suffered another accident. Well, _technically_ it was an incident since it happened at a crime scene.

If Gil was being fair then he'd have to admit it wasn't really Bright's fault. The kid was simply standing there, studying the bodies laid out in their bed in their wedding finery, and listening to Edrisa as she talked about her initial findings.

Who could have expected that one of the forensic guys would whack him in the head with a door?

Gil sighed and made a mental to change the days since back to zero.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm sorry," Gil said, phone to his ear, and chin in the palm of his hand. "He did what?"

" _Fell out of bed_."

Considering how Sorcha sounded amused by the whole thing, Gil assumed Bright was not badly injured.

"How did he fall out of bed?"

Given how the kid secured himself to the wall to avoid that particular event from happening...

" _Well, I was tickling him, he rolled the wrong way and splat_..."

Gil didn't care to think about _what_ they were doing _before_ Bright ended up on the floor.

_Well, least he made it seven days this time..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorcha is a character introduced in Tremors and featured in Here Comes the Sun for those curious souls


	4. Chapter 4

"Bright." Dani Powell crouched beside the profiler. "You good?"

"Yeah." He dabbed gingerly at his lip with a towel. Brushed dirt from his hair. "It's not as bad as it looks."

"It's bad enough." That he only had a cut lip was a miracle to her. "Next time, when someone yells at you to move out of the way, do it."

"I did move."

"Yeah," she lightly kidded. "The wrong way."

"Is there a wrong way to move when a three hundred pound man is running at you?"

Dani figured that was a good point as far as points went.


	5. Chapter 5

JT stared at the white board with the black numbers on it. _Ten days since a Bright accident_.

That he managed to go _one_ day without injuring himself impressed JT.

Bright being an accident waiting to happen was a joke around the precinct. JT didn't find it funny. Bright's complete and utter disregard for his own safety annoyed the hell out of him.

JT found himself wanting to wrap him in bubble wrap. Not that it would keep him from injuring himself.

"Ow," he heard Bright mutter in the hall.

JT sighed and wiped away the one with his thumb.


	6. Chapter 6

Edrisa bit the inside of her lip as she stared at the push pin, well, _pushed_ , into the tip of Bright's right thumb.

"Why do things like this keep happening to me?" He glowered at the offensive tack. "It's like I'm cursed."

"Have you perhaps seen a spider at night?"

"No." Bright's brow furrowed. "Why?"

"Japanese superstition." Edrisa tossed the tack in the trash after she extracted it. "A spider at night is considered back luck."

"I must have seen a lot of spiders at night then." Bright wrapped his thumb in a Kleenex. "I have nothing but bad luck."


	7. Chapter 7

Ainsley was accustomed to her brother getting injured. Malcolm was accident prone. Even she couldn’t figure out how he managed this one, though.

“How did you get a fishing hook caught in your hand?”

“Drop it, Ainse.” Embarrassed color filled his cheeks. “Please.”

The nurse bandaging Malcolm’s hand snickered. Ainsley assumed it was because she knew how Malcolm ended up getting injured. 

“Okay, I want to know how you got that hook in your hand.”

Malcolm shot her a disgruntled look but obliged.

“A fish bit me.”

Ainsley blinked. “What?”

“A fish bit me.”

Ainsley decided to not ask why.


	8. Chapter 8

"Really, Malcolm." Jessica Whitly sighed. "I don't know why you continue working as you do."

"Because I enjoy it," he said. "It keeps me busy."

"You can keep busy without having to solve every murder in the city."

Malcolm was too tired for his mother's well-intentioned nagging. All he wanted to do was go home. Maybe, if he was lucky, Sorcha would be there waiting.

"Goodbye, Mother." He turned to exit the dining room. "It's been lovely talking with you."

And he might have made his exit if his body didn't decide to send him crashing to the floor, first.


	9. Chapter 9

"I'm dying."

"You are not." Gil handed Bright a cough drop and Kleenex. "It's just a cold."

"That I got after falling in a pool in the middle of February."

"You wouldn't have fallen into that pool if you listened."

_Not that you ever do_. Bright listening to something he told him would be sign the world was about to come to an end.

"I didn't see that patch of ice."

"You wouldn't have needed to worry about it if you stayed in the car."

_Like I told you_.

Not that Bright tended to do what he was told, either.


	10. Chapter 10

“Seriously, Bright?” Gil ran a hand over his face and mentally counted to ten before adding, “Couldn’t you have been careful for once in your life?”

“That wood is so rotted anyone could have fallen through those stairs,” Bright uttered in his defense. “Nobody should use them.”

“Why did you?”

Bright looked up from his examination of his ankle.

“It was the only way to get upstairs.”

Gil swallowed a sigh. 

“You could have stayed down here and avoided the possible fracture to your ankle.”

“I do not intentionally try to hurt myself.”

Gil was starting to wonder about that.


	11. Chapter 11

How was it possible for him to get hurt _twice_ in one day? He could not have this much bad luck. _Karma is trying to get me back for what the Surgeon did_.

Malcolm placed his trusty bag of frozen peas against the back of his aching head as Sunshine chirped from her cage. He could blame karma all he wanted but going through those stairs was his own fault.

Getting knocked through a glass window by a guy trying to reach the maternity ward before his wife gave birth?

That was a freak accident.

No matter what Gil said.


	12. Chapter 12

JT managed to catch Bright before he went tumbling face-first down the stairs. For someone who looked like he was lighter than a feather, he weighed a ton.

“Couldn’t wait until we were at the bottom of the stairs before passing out?”

There was no forthcoming response from the man limp in his arms. Not that he expected one. JT sighed and wondered what he had done to deserve an accident prone Bright as his stakeout partner.

“Your skinny ass better appreciate this,” he grumbled as he hoisted the unconscious profiler into his arms and carried him down the stairs.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is an additional scene to A Thousand, Bright from Malcolm’s POV from before he crushed Gil’s car. Tagged to 1x13.

“Bright, we need...”

“To discuss why this is a bad plan?” Malcolm nodded. “Yeah, I know. Not like we have any other choice here.” He looked at the device beneath his hands. “It’s not like I, uh, can let go really.” 

There was an audible _click_. A thousand thoughts raced through Malcolm’s mind. He started talking, and fast. When the smoke literally cleared, he found himself looking at Gil from the roof of his car. 

“I think I’m gonna miss my flight,” likely was the wrong thing to say...

... but it was all he could say given the circumstances. 


	14. Chapter 14

Gil’s car was not the last accident to happen that day. Less than twenty minutes after the tow truck pulled away, Bright tripped, spilling hot tea across the front of his once pristine suit.

Five minutes after that?

He cut his finger on a piece of glass stuck in his hair.

An hour later?

He smacked his elbow on a locker. 

That Bright was a walking disaster was painfully obvious. Way Dani saw it? It was going to take a month before the board in Gil’s office would get back to zero.

“Ouch!”

_Make that two months_ , she mentally corrected.


	15. Chapter 15

Ainsley often wondered if Malcolm had been born under a bad sign. No other logical reason explained how he ended up in the situations he did.

Trouble followed her brother around like a lost puppy.

How else did she explain him showing up at a coffee shop as a fight broke out and getting flattened after one of the combatants fell against him and sent them crashing to the floor?

Born under a bad sign.

It was the only explanation for why things happened to Malcolm. Otherwise, it was bad luck.

And even her brother could not be that unlucky.


	16. Chapter 16

Of course, it happened to Bright. Something like this could only happen to him. JT swore if his dumb ass didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all.

The woman behind Bright's predicament continued to shout obscenities as she was loaded in the car by a furious Dani.

"Don't think she likes me much."

"Bro, she stabbed your ass with her stiletto." Something JT again thought could only happen to Bright. "Pretty clear she hates you."

"My mother broke my television with her stiletto."

"Yeah, doesn't surprise me."

Bright grinned at him.

"She used a black heel, though."


	17. Chapter 17

Sunshine swayed on her swing as her human hissed and spun about in the room with the water fountain in it. _He hurt himself again_ , the wise little budgie thought, chirping pitifully to herself.

Such things happened frequently to her poor human. She lost count of all the accidents he had.

He muttered beneath his breath as he wrapped his hand in a fluffy rag from the room he groomed himself in.

Sunshine recognized a few of the words.

"Stupid," being one, "idiot," another, "and, "careless," the last.

He always chastised himself.

Unnecessarily, really.

He was only human, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s right, I wrote from a parakeet’s perspective lol


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quarantine Malcolm... what could go wrong? 😂

“Let’s build Sunshine a bigger cage,” Malcolm suggested the first day of the mandatory shelter-in order. “It will keep us busy during lockdown.”

Sorcha figured it was a harmless enough project.

Snap some walls together, attach a roof, fix it to a base.

Should’ve been easy enough.

This was _her_ danger prone dumbass, though.

The only man in the world who’d glue his hands to a block of wood.

“You are so explaining this to Gil,” Sorcha muttered as she went to get the nail polish remover from the bathroom.

“Chirp,” echoed Sunshine as she flew after her.


	19. Chapter 19

“How did Bright glue his hands to a block of wood?”

Not that Gil couldn’t imagine how he accomplished such a feat.

“ _Got me_ ,” Sorcha replied as Sunshine waltzed around in front of the camera, tweeting and chirping happily. “ _This is my danger prone dumbass_.”

Gil chuckled softly as he shifted into a more comfortable position in the bed.

“What is he doing now?”

“ _Hanging a_ —”

“ _Ow_!”

“ _Hammering his thumb_ ,” she corrected, sighing.

“Might want to go help him, kiddo.”

“ _Danger prone dope_ ,” she muttered. “ _I am going to hide the tools_.”

Gil knew it was an empty threat.


	20. Chapter 20

Sorcha entered the loft to silence. No chirping from Sunshine, no music on the stereo, no... nothing.

_ Uh oh_ _,_ was her immediate thought. A check of Sunshine’s cage showed the little budgie napping on her porch.

_ There’s one... where’s the other _ ?

A look at the bed revealed it was empty.

Sorcha conducted a thorough investigation of the loft after setting the bags of groceries on the counter. She found Malcolm in what had once been their rooftop garden.

She instantly turned and went back downstairs without even asking what he had been thinking.

Or where he got the hedge-trimmers from.


	21. Chapter 21

Amazon, Sorcha quickly discovered, was a dangerous place for someone like Malcolm. Their loft was overrun with boxes full of what she could only imagine.

“Chirp?”

“I have no idea what he’s bought now.”

She hoped none contained power tools. They had no power because her dope decided to install a ceiling fan without waiting for help.

“I found the box cutter!” Mal bounced down the stairs. “It was in a cabinet upstairs.”

“Next time,” she muttered, “I’ll hide it in the refrigerator.”

“What?” As he sliced into a box. “You say something?”

“I said let’s see what you ordered.”


	22. Chapter 22

“Do you know what my biggest fear is?” Malcolm whispered out of no where. “You.”

“Me?” Sorcha leaned up to stare at him. In the dark his face was pensive, sad. “Why me?”

“I am terrified you will wake up one morning and realize how much you have sacrificed because of me.” A lone tear slid down his cheek. “You will decide you should have more. And,” he said as another tear joined the first. “You will leave me. For good.”

Sorcha smoothed the tears away with her thumb. “Never,” she told him. “I will never leave you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”


	23. Chapter 23

Grocery shopping with Malcolm was an exercise in patience. 

“Are we done yet?”

“Almost.” Sorcha placed apples in the cart. “Just need a couple of more things.” 

“We could have ordered grocery delivery.” 

“We have not been out of the loft in a week.” 

“So?”

“Malcolm.” A sigh. “I know our _normal_ is serial killers and murder but could we add couple things?” 

“Such as?”

“Date nights.” 

He _hmm’ed_. 

“Are we having a date night?” 

“That‘s the point of the cheese and apples.” 

“I thought it was to get me to eat.” 

“Yeah.” Twizzlers went in the cart. “That too.” 


	24. Chapter 24

“Gil!” Bright protested as Dani tied his wrists together with red ribbon. “This is unnecessary!” 

“Sorry, kid, not losing you again.” 

“You didn’t lose me.” 

“You fell down a hole, Bright.” 

“Santa was getting away!” 

“He wouldn’t have gotten far.” Gil indicated for Dani to lead the kid away. “JT was waiting for him by his sleigh.” 

“Gil, c’mon!” 

“Dani, put him in the backseat.” Gil turned away before Bright could turn his patented puppy dog look on him. “And if he doesn’t shut up, tape his mouth shut.”

Dani marched Bright towards the car before he could argue anymore.


	25. Chapter 25

Malcolm awoke on Christmas morning to Sunshine chirping, Selina purring, and Sorcha reading on her iPad.

“ _A Christmas Carol_ ?”

Her lips quirked. “ _The Chimes_ .”

“Knew it was Dickens.” Malcolm went to pet Selina but found his reach impeded. “What the...?” A quick glance revealed his wrist secured to the headboard. “Handcuffs?” He looked worriedly at Sorcha. “Did I...?”

“Get kidnapped last year by a serial killer? Yes, you did.” Her eyes shifted to his. Sparked with mischief and humor. “Are you getting kidnapped again this year? Hell no.”

“Sorch...”

“Have yourself a merry little Christmas, Mal.”

And he did, too. 


	26. Chapter 26

“Papercut!” Bright yelped. “JT, you have to take me to the hospital!” 

JT didn’t bother to look up. “You can’t even see the cut.” 

“You can’t see a broken heart,” Bright shot back. “Doesn’t mean it don’t hurt.”

“Not bleeding.” 

“Beside the point.” 

“Bro, do you want me to call your mother?” 

Far as threats went, it was the one that worked best at getting him to chill out. 

“No.” Then, “Could you call Sorcha, instead?” 

Bright asking to call Mini-Bright could only mean he couldn’t settle down. 

Not without her help. 

“On it,” he said, reaching for the phone. 


	27. Chapter 27

“I have a plan.” 

_Of course, you do_ , JT thought. “Is it a good plan?” 

“Ah.” Bright’s brow crinkled as heavy footsteps sounded in the hall. “All I can say is I have a plan.” 

“Last plan got you kidnapped.”

“Pretty good chance that won’t happen this time.” 

“Pretty good chance we’ll be dead.” 

“Not kidnapped, though.”

“Keep your skinny ass down.” 

Not that Bright did. 

JT ended up having to explain to Bright’s mother how he got shot while silently vowing to make the guy put on a kevlar vest before letting him leave the precinct from now on. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all, and welcome!
> 
> This drabble series is the brainchild from a comment I made to a friend about someone pranking Malcolm by posting a sign with his picture on it and the number of days since he did something stupid to hurt himself. And so here we are! Updates to this might be more sporadic since this is just for fun.
> 
> Please, if you like this piece, kudo/bookmark it! Also, comments are more than welcome! Take care, all!


End file.
